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So, like anyone else, I have my own strong views on certain subjects. I guess you might call me a liberal, though I prefer the term "progressive", because I like to avoid associations with established party-line thinking. Plus, I'm a little out there for most democrats :)

I'm a card-carrying member of the ACLU, and a strong believer in civil disobedience, and general self-determination in day to day life.

I spent a lot of time and energy in college studying multiculturalism, both personally and academically. As much as I loved the religion major, the vast majority of my personal growth inspired by academic work came through my interest in and work with multiculturalism. It was fascinating and frustrating, revelatory and angering. It's amazing how far we've come in terms of social equality and recognition of difference, and amazing how far we have to go. I've been known to get a tad touchy about it, but most of the time I'm fairly reasonable. Or like to think so, anyway.

Loosely falling under the political header of multiculturalism is polyamory, about which you can find out more by checking out Loving More. Here are some older thoughts, and a splendid poem. Plus, some thoughts on monogamy, marriage, another poem, and thoughts on divorce.

And speaking of love, we arrive at the topic of sex. If you're gonna do it, do it right.

Sometimes I manage to surprise myself. But coming out as bisexual wasn't as hard as it could have been.

Here we have Douglas Adams's astute analysis of democratic government.

As far as religion goes, I tend to avoid the organized ones, although most of them have at least a little something to say that's worth listening to. Organized religions, however, do not have the monopoly on wisdom, and the (self-)righteousness that so often goes along with having (a) G/god on one's side gets old in a conversation of beliefs and values. Here's a non-tract by someone who sounds really tired of it. And I won't even get into the (too numerous) places I think organized religions are really blowing it. *significant look at Baptists on gender issues*

I generally describe myself as an agnostic atheist. Most people define "agnosticism" as a belief that there's not enough proof about the existence of G/god to know one way or the other. That's not exactly where I fall. I think that it's impossible to know one way or the other. Not that we don't have enough information, but that we simply cannot know. Because if there is a G/god, it is so beyond our experience that we couldn't recognize it -- our minds simply couldn't encompass it. God, as one of my favorite t-shirts reads, is radically other and unapproachable. And I'm an atheist because I belive that there is no G/god. So the short form is: I believe it's impossible to know if such a thing exists, but I think not.

For other agnostics and atheists, The Secular Web is an interesting and entertaining site.

For everyone interested in religions, take a look at The Religious Tolerance site. Very well done, imnaaho.

Along the same lines, for folks who are interested in critical thought on religion as well as various topics such as faith healing, alternative medicine, psychos... er, psychics, that is, ESP, UFOs and aliens, etc, take a gander at The Skeptics Society, particularly their Skeptical Manifesto. At the very least, it's likely to make you think.

One of the things about our society that really makes me nervous is the desire so many seem to have to repress the voices of those who disagree with them. While I may abhor what someone has to say, I strongly believe in the freedom of speech. The only appropriate form of censorship is on the part of the audience deciding not to listen to a message. When large corporations or businesses begin to make that decision for others, I begin to wonder. A lot of this happens on the ever-growing horizon of the internet. To keep an eye on this sort of thing, look at Peacefire.org ("because ignorance shouldn't have to be hereditary"). They actually bill themselves as a web site focused on making information available to minors (they're critics of filtering software like "Cyber Patrol" and "Net Nanny") but as part of the process they've taken some bullying from this type of business to try to shut them up. Also check out Project Censored for information on some of the more subtle censorship that happens all the time.

Before you leave, drop me email with URLs or topics you think I might like to add to this page.